“Most scientists today do not speak out about their belief in God because they would be blacklisted if they did.”
Most theist scientists do science just fine. Ken Miller does science just fine, and he’s Christian, and he talks about both, and he’s still got a job. It only becomes a problem when it gets in the way of the science. Declaring that the bacterial flagellum is Intelligently Designed then crying “Oppression!” when people don’t listen is not a surprise when the declarer hasn’t bothered to research the subject. ID didn’t get torn apart at Dover because scientists hate Christians. It got wiped out because others did the research that they ignored before declaring by fiat that, since they didn’t know of plausible evolutionary pathways, no one else had, either.

“There is reverse McCarthy’ism going on in the intellectual community today.”
You do realize that you’re on a page about people who think that the “Vapor canopy theory” is valid, right? If they’re pushed to the periphery it’s not because they’re Christians, it’s because they’re dead wrong and trying to get the State to endorse that wrongness.

“Maybe this is the fault of the course our country took when it went to a two-party system?”
It started before that (the bickering over what should go into what became the Constitution), but the Civil Right movement kicked it into high gear (leading to the Southern Strategy and the homogenization of both parties).

“I’m becoming more moderate the older I get, because I cannot see any good that comes from the zealous nature of left-wing and right-wing philosophies.”
I move a little more toward the anti-authoritarian Left every year. That seems to be where the best people are.

“I mean, if there is NO purpose or no design, then what’s the purpose of atheists who struggle so mightily to disprove the design theory?”
We like having facts and theories taught in science class, rather than myths and arguments from ignorance.

“All I see is humanistic, self-inflating “God’s not God. I am God” thinking.”
It sounds like you’re projecting. I’m not God. Then I’d be fictional, which makes it tough to buy pants.

“The schools, universities, and other forms of influence have driven out the idea of God.”
I take it that you’ve never taken a Comparative Religion course, history course or visited the Theology department at the University.

“Is this how we arrived at the cure for illnesses?”
We arrived at cures for illnesses by asking “How does that work?” It’s a pretty good way to figure out how things actually work, actually. It works even better when you leave the supernatural out of the natural, as it turns out that the only right supernatural answer is all of them.

“Because scientists accepted current thinking as irrefutable truth?”
You’re thinking of theology.

“Or did they press in and beyond what their authorities said couldn’t be done?”
Science is built on asking questions. To a certain extent religion is too. The difference is that science investigates and discards the failure. Religion just schisms. That’s why, as data accumulates, competing scientific theories come closer together, while religion continues to splinter, as one man’s orthodoxy is another’s heresy.

“I mean, if there is NO purpose or no design, then what’s the purpose of atheists who struggle so mightily to disprove the design theory?”
We like having facts and theories taught in science class, rather than myths and arguments from ignorance.

“All I see is humanistic, self-inflating “God’s not God. I am God” thinking.”
It sounds like you’re projecting. I’m not God. Then I’d be fictional, which makes it tough to buy pants.

“The schools, universities, and other forms of influence have driven out the idea of God.”
I take it that you’ve never taken a Comparative Religion course, history course or visited the Theology department at the University.

“Is this how we arrived at the cure for illnesses?”
We arrived at cures for illnesses by asking “How does that work?” It’s a pretty good way to figure out how things actually work, actually. It works even better when you leave the supernatural out of the natural, as it turns out that the only right supernatural answer is all of them.

“Because scientists accepted current thinking as irrefutable truth?”
You’re thinking of theology.

“Or did they press in and beyond what their authorities said couldn’t be done?”
Science is built on asking questions. To a certain extent religion is too. The difference is that science investigates and discards the failure. Religion just schisms. That’s why, as data accumulates, competing scientific theories come closer together, while religion continues to splinter, as one man’s bad orthodoxy is another’s heresy.

…and I may have put comments to one post in the wrong place. Wups.

“Man, when thinking in humanistic terms, can skew data, stats, research, and even claim that a person in history didn’t even exist, if it means that the conclusion HE believes to be right is arrived upon.”
And thinking in theistic terms helps, how? (see above)

“If this doesn’t speak to the wretchedness of the condition of man, when he looks within himself for the answers and will toil endlessly to prove that he is right and everybody else is wrong, nothing else will.”
The what of the condition of who?

“Man will do whatever it takes to champion himself as having figured everything out. Just come to me! I solved it!”
Sounds more like Fundamentalism, to me. I’m quite aware that I don’t have all the answers. This, I freely admit. I’m not trying enshrine my ignorance by forcing the State to issue me a diplomas on same.

“I have found, in this blog, that the vast majority of atheists are smug about their absoluteness.”
I don’t know if this helps, but I am pretty confident in just about nothing, and I’m not even absolutely sure about that. Even bananas, which I despise, I don’t hate absolutely (thanks to banana bread). If God is (or are), I’m reasonably certain that, aside from the deist possibility, it’s none of the ones of the various “revealed religions”, which bear all too clearly the marks of their human origin (either that, or God’s kind of an asshole, which is another possibility I can’t discount).

“There is no burden, on anybody, to prove that God exists.”
There sure as hell is if you want Him in science class! Or sex-ed! Or Law! Or…!

“At some point, a mature person has to stop the belittling of others so that he can objectively consider that what he had been taught as a child might not be the whole truth.”
Considering the hack job you just did on the Theory of Evolution, at best that statement is a tu quoque.

“The “accident” theory means that everything is an accident: You are an accident, the love you have for your child is an accident, etc.”
Actually, if the universe is purely deterministic, then nothing is an accident (but terms like “accident” and “purpose” are meaningless without an agent behind them).

“The sun fuels plants, which produce oxygen, which fuels humans, who therefore produce carbon dioxide, which fuels plants.”
Billions of years of evolution and many times more than that of failures of evolution will do that. You’re the end result of an unbroken chain of successes. What you’re forgetting is how many other chains never made it this far. The wins are a pittance compared to the failures.

“How a person can marvel at creation and its complexity, and know damn well that things have been designed somehow to operate in sync with one another…”
Tell that to my prostate.

“…yet scoff at the idea of a creator…”
Hey, Creator! Look at my prostate!

“…is the ultimate height of humanistic ignorance”
Hey! Another tu quoque! Woo!

Glad to hear it. The fact that you are debating on here, without getting all shouty, is evidence of that. The difficulty for non-believers is that anyone announcing a religious faith is automatically in a different camp to those who want to discuss evidence-based science. There’s plenty to discuss, all right, as not all scientists are squeaky clean or unbiased (if you want an unedifying example of that, look on any global warming site!) but at least they’re mostly trying to sift the evidence, and a disagreement there is not an opening for creationists, say, to jump in and promote their view. Their beliefs are based on biblical texts that they revere – which is perfectly OK, but not a position from which to debate science.

Christian with a capital ‘c’? Hmm… If it was his name, then that’s probably correct, and I usually write God the same way, even though I have my doubts about him. Those creationists will have to make do with a small one, though…

How about this little gem I wrote in the very same post you quoted me on:

This is ALSO what I said, James: “There is much smugness on the side of atheists AND Christians, and I’m a Christian. There is a wide array of atheists who are sincere in their unbelief, and then there are some who are obnoxious and arrogant about it. I have found, in this blog, that the vast majority of atheists are smug about their absoluteness. There is also a wide array of Christians who are sincere in their belief, but the vast majority of the ones that seem to hold the microphone are the ones that shouldn’t be doing the talking. Agreed?”

I easily cop to the atheist’s gripe that Christians need to cool it with the Church Lady routine. But you only shared one snippet.

It’s on both sides more times than not. It’s a rare thing, and yet it’s also a great thing, when the atheist and the Christian can discuss things without resorting to insulting each other. All I can say is read my other posts, which I think shows that I’m probably on here with an attitude of being contributor and not a sniper.